Entry Title: " Schools in Tohoku"
Name: Ayano Hisa, United States
Category: Professional, Interiors


Entry Description: On March 11, 2011, Ishinomaki City, Miyagi, Japan, where my mother grew up and my uncle still lives, and Sendai City, where my aunt lives, were hit by the tsunami caused by the massive earthquake. I happened to be in Tokyo and was with my family at the time. We couldn't reach uncle's family for about eight days. I went to the area 11 days after the tsunami with my Mamiya 7. After helping my uncle's family, I photographed the area for a day. Everything I saw there made me sick. The scenes were traumatic. In December 2011 and February 2012, I went back to the area and photographed again with my Mamiya 7 and Linhof Technika. I felt that giving up on photographing there meant giving up on my mother's hometown, where I used to visit my grandparents since childhood. After almost one year, although a lot of debris was moved away, the area still looked very close to what I saw right after the tsunami. I was searching for the scenes that showed the worst damages made by the tsunami. I photographed hundreds trying to show how bad it was. However, the photographs did not look like my photographs. Because everything in the area looked like a nightmare and was worse than any "end of the world" kind of Hollywood movies I have ever seen, I lost focus. I got sick by seeing them again and again, and for myself, I needed to change the way I photographed. Gradually, I started to be able to control my feeling and my eyes as a photographer. I looked for what my eyes wanted to see, even in the debris caused by the tsunami. I also decided to focus on schools, to which I could connect the most. In Japan, a lot of schools are built similar and doors, windows, shelves, chairs, desks, etc, looked similar to what my school had. These five photographs are from the series of photographs, Schools in Tohoku (tentative title).

Photo 1: 3 skeletal windows in a school that was devastated due to fire caused by cars brought there by the Tsunami

Photo 2: Hallway of a school that was flooded after the Tsunami.

Photo 3: Sandbags with debris, ocean sand, sea creatures, student's memories, etc, in a class room.

Photo 4: A class room in a school that was devastated by fire after Tsunami.

Photo 5: Almost abstract painting-like debris looked through a garage entrance in a school.

I was born in Japan in 1981. My father, who is a jewelry designer in Japan, and my mother love Art and gave us, my older sister and me, a lot of opportunity to see and experience Art since we were very young. Although I did not start studying Art seriously until recently, I was naturally exposed to Art because of my family. I came to United States about 6 years ago and started to study photography 5 years ago. About the same time, I began to go to Jazz clubs to photograph, because Jazz music was my another favorite. I was very lucky and had great experiences by interning for a photographer, Frank Stewart, at Jazz@LincolnCenter in New York. Photographing music let me understand more about photography and my interest in photography became broader. I became into Black and White documentary photography and then street photography in color. Currently, I am finishing up MFA in photography at Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta.